Days and Lessons
by Carla
Summary: PostFinale. Some good and bad lessons that the Cohen kids just had to learn. Set in the future.


**Days and Lessons**

**By Carla**

DISCLAIMER: Obviously not mine. This is a weird exercise I ended up playing with. More than a story, it takes three characters and five lessons that they have learned in five days. This way, the story ends up telling us about the future of some of the characters. Some parts are longer than others. The only thing I kept in mind was to make them short and not to go over to pages on my notebook. I hope you enjoy it!

---A---A---A---

_RYAN_

Today, a new life begins for Ryan Atwood. Securing his backpack onto his shoulder, he stares at the campus that will be his home for the next few years. Ryan Atwood, an UC Berkley student, he wouldn't have believed that in a million years. But somehow, it had happened. Today, Ryan realized it is possible to become a new person.

---R---

Ryan thought he understood fear. After his childhood, Marissa, Oliver, Trey and the earthquake, he felt like fear had nothing on him. That is, until the day his two-year-old baby sister fell down the stairs of their parent's home. His heart, literally, stopped. He was babysitting Sophie and had thought she was already asleep, so he had left her alone in her bedroom for ten minutes. It was all the time it had taken for the toddler to come looking for him, attempting to climb down the stairs. Fear got a whole new meaning when he saw her little form crumpled on the floor. And even though a broken leg later he was still 'the bestest bothe' ever', he had learned what fear was really about that day.

---R---

The day he learned about fate was his college graduation. He had done the whole college experience: study, meet new friends, party and date cute girls. He had had fun, those were happy times. Still, he didn't quite know what he wanted from life. But watching as Sandy held Kirsten closely while she carried Sophie in her arms; seeing the adoration on Seth's eyes whenever he would look at Summer; he knew what he wanted. He wanted that kind of love. He wanted true love. And the precise minute he was wondering if he would ever get it, Taylor Townsend walked right back into his life to see him become an architect.

---R---

Ryan used to believe he had learned something about fairy tales after countless nights of reading them to Sophie. But, truth be told, he always thought they were just illusions, vain hopes for people too scared to see the truth: there were no happy endings. But as he watched his parents kissing as people around them clapped on their 30th wedding anniversary, he finally realized that 'forever' was not unattainable. Guided by that belief, he got down on one knee and asked Taylor to marry him, even though he hadn't even thought of buying a ring yet.

---R---

Sandy always said that Ryan had a savior complex. Whoever was in trouble, Ryan just 'had' to rescue. Summer had once asked him why he kept doing it, what was he trying to prove. Ryan had told her the truth: he didn't know. But the day he had come across a young sad boy sitting by a payphone, his bike nearby, Ryan had finally understood salvation. _His_ salvation wouldn't come from a hero complex. His salvation would come from accepting he was not some screw-up from Chino who had landed himself in juvie anymore; he was a different person now. He had been saved. He was now a man who could truly help others, not just by throwing punches. As he asked the boy if he needed help, he realized Sandy Cohen was a true, living hero. Without a complex.

---A---A---A---

_SETH_

Seth learned about true loneliness the day his roommate committed suicide. He used to believe he had been alone in the world until Ryan had moved in with his family; that he had been a loser and no one in the world had ever cared about him. But as Kevin's coffin was laid into the ground without his parent's attending the funeral, he knew he was never really alone. Every single day of his childhood, he had been hugged by his father and kissed by his mother. All of a sudden, his reasons for hating his childhood were not truly that important.

---S---

Seth learned that he was not the only person in the world the day he broke his baby sister's heart. He had been visiting his family at Berkley and Sophie wouldn't stop nagging him about playing party with her dolls (she _was_ Kirsten Cohen's daughter after all). Wanting to be left alone, Seth had told her that if she didn't stop, he would curse her favorite doll and she would die. In retrospect, not something one should said to a four-year-old. Two hours later, Sandy had started yelling at him; apparently, Sophie had been crying her eyes out in her too-pink-bedroom the whole time, because she thought her big brother hated her. Never in his life had Seth imagined he could hurt someone who loved him so much without even realizing it. As he held Sophie close to him as her sobs slowly stopped, reassuring her that he loved her, he realized his actions and words could actually hurt people.

---S---

Summer had tough him how to be a man. He had to learn how to be one, because she had grown up faster than he had and Seth didn't want to lose her. But that day in their honeymoon, when Summer had confessed that _he_ was the reason she could do the amazing things she did, Seth finally felt like a man, for the first time in his entire life. Because, if Summer needed him to be her rock, how could he not grow the hell up?

---S---

Pride eluded him for the most part of his life. He had few things that he loved and usually felt apathy daily. But as he saw for the first time his son's brown eyes, he finally felt there was something he had done that he was fiercely proud of. He was Robert Nicholas Cohen's father, and his life had just turned over.

---S---

Seth learned what true, undeterred, pain felt like the day he buried Sandy and Kirsten Cohen. They had been driving back from the airport after spending the weekend at Newport, visiting Julie Cooper. Then the accident had happened… one thing Seth was relieved about was that they had been together. Neither of his parents would have to go through the pain of losing the other. Seth went through the motions; he had help put together the funeral and buried them. He had allowed Summer to comfort him and had promised his kids that grandpa and grandma would be watching over them from Heaven. But the reception had proven too much for him, so he had searched for solace in his parent's bedroom. Apparently, he had not been the only one with that idea. Nineteen-year-old Sophie and Thirty-eight-year-old Ryan were sitting there, on the floor. Joining his siblings, the tree Cohen kids finally broke down and mourned their beloved parents.

---A---A---A---

_SOPHIE_

The first day Sophie Cohen truly had felt betrayed was when she was six. She had everything she wanted. She lived a happy life and had a great family. So, she had obviously felt like her world had crumbled down the day Jeremy Atwood had informed her that Ryan was his brother, not hers. Sophie had always known there was something different about Ryan; he had another last-name and he called their parents 'Sandy' and 'Kirsten'. Still, she never considered before that Ryan wasn't her brother. So, after punching Jeremy on the stomach, she had confronted her parents, who had admitted Ryan was not their _real_ son. She had refused to leave her room until Ryan himself came looking for her. He then had told her his whole story and had promised her, as she rested in his arms, that while he shared blood with Jeremy, she was the one he counted as his baby sister. Forever.

---S---

Sophie had learned about friendship by watching her older siblings. Ryan and Seth were best friends, so were Taylor and Summer. While Sophie had tons of friends, she didn't have quite that kind of friendship with anyone. So, when her brother Ryan introduced her to a boy about three years older that her, named Benjamin Castle, telling her he would now be living at his house, Sophie decided to be his friend. And because Ben had looked like he didn't have anyone in the world, Sophie had offered to take his hand and play with him, and to make sure Ben was never alone again.

---S---

Sophie gained new admiration for her parents after spending a three month vacation at Newport Beach when she was twelve. She never had really understood why they had moved when she was born, or that a place could actually shunned people, before that. But she had seen how lonely Jeremy was, and while she had fun at their parties, she hated the hypocrisy. And while their lifestyle was flashy, she wasn't that interested. She realized her parents had moved and changed their whole lives because they had wanted her to grow up happy.

---S---

She learned about love and trouble the very same day. She was fifteen and Ben Castle had just kissed her. She would have been lying if she said Ben was so much like a brother to her that she hadn't noticed how handsome he was. And while all the reasons of why it was wrong to kiss him back had flown out of her head (he was her brother's stepson!), she couldn't help but feel surprised about how right the kiss had felt. After all, complicated, endogamous, creepy relationships run in her family, right?

---S---

Sophie had to learn about healing at nineteen. Six months after her parent had died, she asked Ben to marry her. It was not like they hadn't talk about it before. They were both in college, Ben was studying Music at NYU and she had just started in the Art Program at Berkley. But after losing the stability in her life, she had tried to find something to keep her together. She had told Ben as much when he asked her if this was about her parents. But she had told him it was also about love, their love. She didn't want to waste a day. She wanted to live and love again with her whole heart. _That_, she had learned from her parents.

---A---A---A---

_So, I killed the Cohens. Sorry, I didn't want to. Seriously, I love Kandy! But it had to be done for the story to work. I tried to make up some happy parts to go along with the sad ones. And I really wanted to see how life went on for the Cohen kids; hope you liked it._


End file.
